Two Millennials Experience A Beach Day From Hell In The Biting New Comedy, ‘Fort Tilden’

Fort Tilden, the debut feature from writer-directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers, follows a pair of unlikely heroes: the romper-clad, sometimes whiney, often infuriating Millennials Harper and Allie (Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty, respectively), two Williamsburg gals who plan to take a day off from their usual listlessness and bike down to Fort Tilden to meet up with a couple of guys they met at a party. Hilarity, naturally, ensues. Among the many obstacles in their way include bitchy gay guys, mean Park Slope moms, aggressively mean Uber drivers, perfectly distressed antique barrels, bike thieves, and, in Allie’s case, an angry Peace Corps liaison who keeps calling for the paperwork needed for her upcoming trek to Liberia.

On the surface, this clueless pair could be read as sociopathic. But Bliss and Rogers’ biting comedy presents a surprisingly thoughtful and nuanced look at these two young women, who throughout their day from Hell are confronted with their own privilege, lack of self-awareness, and their possibly crumbling friendship. At times a satire of hipster culture, Fort Tilden manages to be aggressively funny and tender, by its end humbling its audience into feeling a semblance of empathy for two characters who, at the beginning of the film, seemed like twenty-something monsters.

I chatted with the duo behind the summer’s most notoriously naive characters, and Bliss and Rogers opened up about crafting complicated characters, the act of breaking up with a friend, and the enduring power of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5SL2-AZ2aU]

Decider: The first question that sort of came to mind — and you’ve probably gotten this one before — is about unlikable protagonists. I always read that description and notice that it’s usually coded, that it’s describing female characters who are “unlikable” or “unrelatable.” Is that something you’ve had to discuss or think about a lot?

Sarah-Violet Bliss: Yeah, it’s incredible. I think that there is something about the characters. When we were writing them, we weren’t considering unlikability; we were just looking for what was funny. It’s fun to write them. They do things that we do see are true, not just to our friends, but ourselves as well, unfortunately. I like unlikable characters a lot…they’re always my favorite. [Cate Blanchett] in Blue Jasmine, for example — that’s one of my favorite characters, and I guess she’s unlikable, but I think she’s so fun to watch. We certainly aren’t trying to endorse [Allie and Harper’s] behavior. We’re not trying to say that they depict everyone in the world. They depict themselves. I think it’s fun to watch them.

Charles Rogers: I think that the likable/unlikable thing is the biggest talking point with press. That’s the thing that people like to comment on the most, and it’s funny because I feel like we wrote characters that are like people we know — and we like those people. They are difficult people… I mean, maybe they’re not people that you’d want to go on vacation with, but they’re also some of your best friends. It’s interesting that when something is in an official setting, suddenly you question whether someone is likable or not. But we have plenty of friends that are difficult, and we don’t question their likability day to day. It’s just who they are.

It seems like audiences want to watch movies or read books or watch television shows and see a character who’s perfect. It makes people feel better about themselves in a way.

CR: I think that people are very afraid that they might relate to the characters. And then some people will find it cathartic to watch an unlikable aspect revealed. It’s something that people will enjoy about the movie.

SVB: Some people are like, “Oh my god, that’s me.”

The movie comments about privilege in a way that I hadn’t seen before. There are no lessons to be learned, there’s no big catharsis at the end. By the end of the film, Allie and Harper have had a really shitty day and may be questioning things internally that they’re not vocalizing so much. But I also thought it was really interesting in terms of how different they were as characters. Harper is the more acidic and openly hostile of the two and maybe clueless of her own privilege, whereas Allie has the heart and genuinely wants to do something good in the world. Did you set out to write these characters that were sort of playing off each other in that way, or is it just about trying to make as realistic people as possible?

SVB: They started to turn into that while we were writing it. It kind of evolved, they kind of evolved, and it became that kind of codependent relationship that is not healthy. They probably need to part ways and to face certain facts about themselves. As we were writing, and that was becoming what we were writing about, we really started unpacking that, giving it layers and thinking about friends that we’ve had. We’ve both have friend breakups, and were thinking about what it’s like to be in those types of relationships when it’s with a friend and not a romantic partner. It’s just as much emotionally stripping. Having to break up with a friend is such an awkward thing to have to do. Not that Allie and Harper end up breaking up, but understanding what is going wrong in a friendship was interesting to us.

CR: Yeah I think that the characters don’t have a lot of self-awareness, like you said. The film doesn’t propose any sort of morality about the way they should behave. It points out that what they are doing is wrong, but it doesn’t necessarily propose any of the right answers for them, either. A lot of people experience this film and say that there is no redemption for the characters, but if the whole crux of these characters is that they don’t have self-awareness by the end of the film, they’ve experienced enough at the end of the day that they are starting to have build some for themselves. And that’s enough redemption for us in writing this movie. By the end of this day, they’ve experienced enough consequences for the actions that they’ve made, but they needed to understand that there might be a pattern.

Were there other films or shows that you looked at as models for their relationship, particularly female-led comedies?

CR: That’s also a movie where there is sort of one alpha and one beta [in the friendship]: Romy is the alpha and Michele is sort of the beta. But also Michele has more of the right answers than Romy does. Sort of like how Allie has a little more of a heart than Harper.

SVB: I support that. [laughs]

CR: But we’ve both been the Allie and the Harper in different relationships. There’s always a status or control thing in every single individual relationship you have. When we first met with Clare and Bridey, that was one the things that we really talked about” the times when they had been the Harper or the Allie in the relationship, and how sometimes in those relationships the person that you expect to have less control in some way has more. I think in some ways Allie is the one who is threatening Harper [by leaving for the Peace Corps], even though Harper’s the one you assume has more control. Control is complicated in relationships.

How much of the finished film was written on the page? Was there any improvisation or movement during the filming?

SVB: It’s mostly fully written. When we cast Clare, who’s a friend of mine from college, we started writing it in her voice. When we cast Bridey, we kind of started writing in her voice, too. And then there are a couple scenes that are more improvised, like when they hit the baby stroller.

It feels almost insulting to ask that question. Like, “Did you write that or did your actors do it?” I think it’s a testament to how great the movie is — it feels so natural.

CR: I think that improvisers bring a looseness and a playfulness to the performance that can help make it feel looser and more naturalistic. I feel like the writing is pretty tight, like there was a reason every line was in there. You do run the risk, when letting people improvise, of getting away from the point. But luckily we had great people.

Fort Tilden hits theaters and VOD today. Find out where to stream the movie here.